of remembrance and glorification of God, I offered endless praise and thanks to the Glorious Creator, for He had given me belief, the source of these innumerable bounties. And seeing that it is incumbent on me to think of all the beings in my personal world, which is as vast as the world, as being engaged in the praise and glorification of God, and through intention to make use of them, it means that I say “All praise and thanks to God for the light of belief” together with all those beings, who utter it singly and as a whole through the tongue of disposition.
Moreover, the pleasures of life, which had been reduced to nothing by my heedless and dreadful state of mind, and my hopes, which had withered up entirely, and my personal enjoyment and bounties, which had been constricted within the narrowest bounds, indeed, destroyed, suddenly so expanded through the light of belief that narrow sphere around my heart that it contained the whole universe – as has been proved clearly in other parts of the Risale-i Nur – and in place of the bounties which had withered up in the garden of the Horhor Medrese and lost their taste, it made the realms of this world and the hereafter each a merciful table of bounties. It showed that not only the ten or so human members like the eyes, ears, and heart, but also the hundred members were an extremely long arm which believers might extend each according to his degree, to those two tables of the Most Merciful, to gather in the bounties from all sides. At that time, I uttered the following words both to express this elevated truth, and as thanks for those endless bounties:
“I offer praise and thanks to my Creator for the light and bounty of belief to my very utmost, with all the particles of my being, for it shows me that this world and the hereafter are overflowing with bounties and mercy, and allows me and all true believers to benefit from those two vast tables with the hands of all their senses, which develop and unfold through the light of belief and Islam.”
Since belief is so tremendously effective in this world, certainly in the Eternal Realm it will have such fruits and effulgences that they cannot be comprehended with the mind in this world, nor described.
O you elderly people who like me experience the pains of separation from numerous friends due to old age! However much older than me in years the oldest of you is, my guess is that in meaning I am older than him. For since by nature I feel excessive pity and compassion for my fellow beings, I have experienced the sufferings of thousands of my brothers in addition to my own pains and feel as though I have lived for hundreds of years. However much you have suffered the calamity of separation, you have not suffered it as I have. For I have no son that I should think only of